We've just added a trio of cameras to our studio comparison tool: the Canon PowerShot G7 X, Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 and the Sony Alpha a5100. The Canon G7 X and Panasonic LX100 were two of the most talked-about cameras to emerge from Photokina 2014. Both manage to squeeze large sensors into compact camera bodies.

The G7 X's 20MP 1"-type BSI CMOS sensor and 24-100mm equiv. F1.8-2.8 lens are housed in a body not much bigger than an S120, and the LX100's 16MP Four Thirds sensor with 24-75mm equiv. F1.7-2.8 lens looks quite impressive compared to its predecessor and its 1/1.7-inch chip. Along with the 24MP interchangeable lens Sony a5100, they're available in our studio scene tool with an ever-growing list of cameras for comparison.

Comments

Looking at low light comparison, only G7X manitains both color tone and gray scale progression, from white to black. All the other players show poorer performance with gray scale appearing as a brown scale.

In some places the Canon looks soft and in others, the Sonys have so much CA there are red fringes around the test pattern. As always, the camera with a bigger sensor gives better results and if you want a small camera with really sharp corners and wide angle, skip zoom lenses entirely. Well, no surprises.

We try to remove all variables not related to the camera itself from the results. The camera sits on a very sturdy tripod (which itself is stabilized by sandbags), image stabilization is turned off, and we shoot using the self timer.

Of course, we do live in a seismically active zone so maybe one could argue that we should have a seismometer to measure minor earth tremors! (Actually, I think Rishi would seriously geek-out on that.) We look at all the photos very closely and if one particular shot did somehow have a small degree of shake introduced it would likely stand out from the rest of the series.

I really wanted a tilt-LCD on the LX100. I like the button and control, the flash shoe and EVF all together.

To the price I really consider the Sony A6000 with 16-50 lens instead. Just as compact, has it all, interchangable lens but slower, better AF (I think) and 24mp that downsized to 12mp will be beat LX100 by a margin.

From 2.8 to 5.6 is only 2 f-stops. The LX100 lens is also a compromise and I would judge when looking at real life examples if they are on par with each other. The 4:3 have the extra option to switch lenses; thus, not as portable then.

I'm curious: if people would take a look at the comparison of the G7X vs. the RX100 M1, M2, and M3 in our studio scene here, would you all think that every one of those cameras we received was a dud as well?

The G7 X actually performs the best of the bunch in that particular crop, but have a look around the entire scene & you'll see variability between all cameras. In other areas, any one of the Sonys pulls ahead, while in others, the G7 X does.

I'm not ruling out a poor copy, but I'd ask that others not rule out what's plain to see from all four cameras: it's clearly hard to design a zoom lens sharp across the field for this sort of pixel pitch.

@Rishi - Yes, I see what you mean. Looking again, the G7X seems to look particularly blurred in the area just left of center, where the black and white image of the gathering around the easel is, and the colour photo of the lady with dark hair. Strange. It actually looks OK in the top left corner! For whatever reason, the G7X has certain proved capable of making some rough images - have you seen the samples on Imaging Resource? At least part of the problem seems to be strong chromatic aberration, and no doubt the processing that tries to fix it.

I get (from your example crop above) the impression, that the G7x (at the lens settings here) shows more high contrast detail than the RX100 m3, but that it shows less detail in areas with low contrast, as e.g. in the link below.Is this a fair observation? If so, have you seen (when preparing for the test scene) whether this is a characteristic of the G7x lens?

I agree, the A5100 is superior by a safe margin. I had the RX10 for a while, and reached the same conclusion that 20 MP is far too many for a 1" sensor, and quality of these fixed zoom lenses. The LX100 looks OK, but I'm not sure I agree that it's quite as recommendable as some reviewers make out - it's too big and too expensive for the IQ on offer. As for the GX7, it looks like there's something wrong with it...

DPR has explained it somewhere below.They try to take the image on the focal length where the lens is best.

The Sony rx100mkiii is great at 28-50mm equiv.The canon g7x more at the long-end. This test is about noise and sensor performance. So they try to get Max. Sharpness out of the lens so we can judge how much detail gets lost at the higher iso's.

I think Rishi may have addressed this below, but I'll mention it again for those who may not have seen it. The studio scene is really designed to expose differences in JPEG processing (e.g. color, how noise reduction is applied, etc.) and noise levels in Raw files.

To equalize the playing field as much as possible for that purpose, we test compact cameras at every aperture across their entire focal range to see where the lens performs best. As one might expect, not all lenses perform best at the same focal length/aperture combination, which is why there's not a standard setting applied to each one. A lot of pixel-peeping goes into figuring out what combination is sharpest (there may even be a couple different settings that are basically identical) but by the time we choose the settings to use for the studio scene we've got a pretty good idea of how the lens performs.

To address what Mike FL said though: fair point about the wide-end performance. Same goes for the RX100 III, which is generally sharper on the wide than tele end.

That said, we didn't shoot it, or other cameras, on the wide end for this studio scene b/c:

Distortion correction on these compacts can lead to very soft corners. And given the uproar against field uniformity as it is already...

Perspective of objects changes in the (not entirely 2D) scene with the very close scene distance at 24mm. Making the scene a bit inconsistent when compared to shots at longer focal lengths.

Re: that last point - you might argue that it's not a big deal, and I wouldn't hold it against you.

But, yeah, that's our reasoning. I wouldn't disagree that it'd be worthwhile to show performance at different focal lengths, but, again, it'd be of limited value given the one subject distance that'd be tested per focal length. Infinity field uniformity OTOH would be nice, but difficult.

The two upper quarters of the comparison are more cropped than the two lower ones. Doesn't this impede comparison of the upper and lower examples? Plus, to me all four quarters are so small that everything looks blurry. Maybe young eagle eyes see differently.

Is it just me, or the Canon G7x sample was motion blurred? And the LX100? If you see the top left and bottom right, the red water colour paint, and colour circle on the bottom left, the letters are blurred. The circle also not a full circle, a bit distorted. I'm not the expert, maybe DP Reviewers can help clarify why is that?

It may be the G7X wasn't aligned parallel to the test scene. Look at the color wheel on the lower left vs. the upper right for the G7X. The upper right is much crisper, and actually a bit better than the RX100 in that part of the image. On the lower left, the two are reversed with the RX100 looking better. Both cameras ought to be re-shot with the lens wide open to check alignment before doing the final test image.

Lensjoy: the scene is square, so it was parallel to the sensor. The lens is just not very good and additionally not very well built. This is common in tiny zoom lenses with optical image stabilisation, plastic telescoping barrels, and low cost. And this particular lens pushes everything to new extremes: image circle, speed, range, compactness, etc. It’s bound to have weaknesses.

In the real world the misalignment is not very important, since you’re just as likely to photograph a non-parallel scene as one parallel to the image plane – with the notable exception of distant scenes.

It seems like the JPEG processing on the Canon is a little heavy-handed in the noise reduction department compared to the Sony. This is evident to me because the images from both cameras are exactly the same detail resolution-wise when you change over to RAW. The Panasonic looks slightly better than both of them but it's not a world of difference. I do like the colors better on the Canon though. The Panasonic has nice colors too but seems to produce a blush effect with lighter skin tones.

Nice to see the LX100's ISO performance reflect its sensor size advantage vs the other 2 compacts. More surprising though is how much detail it captures despite its resolution handicap.

It seems the initial concerns around "soft" sample images may have been the product of a combination of suboptimal jpeg rendering, real lens weakness at wide angle and wide aperture (not really surprising for anyone who has used wide angle lenses) with a prodigious helping of trigger happy forumites with a severe case of jumping-to-conclusionitis.

Just curious. Was anyone disappointed with the LX100 RAW files? A couple of weeks ago everyone seemed to be bemoaning how bad the LX100 images looked. Now it appears that the RAW files are quite acceptable to me. Anyone disagree?

Many say Japanese camera manufacturers use very strong NR by default to make Asian / Japanese females happier with the results. (Higher NR smoothens the images - something many females want with their own portraits.)

The same stands for Fuji's cameras - the default NR is VERY high and absolutely unneeded.

Despite its lower pixel count, at ISO 1600 the LX100's images don't turn to mush. Look at the text on the grey background. The LX100 stays legible while the Canon and Sony have become mushy. Megapixel race anyone?

I don't care for Canon's soft approach with very strong sharpening halos. The LX100 has more "snap".

Except that the LX100 also bests the G1X Mk II, in my opinion. I'm surprised how much better the LX100 looks in this studio scene (which is not necessarily indicative of how it will fare in real scenes with more DR, AF, etc.) than the G1X, RX100 and so on, especially at higher ISOs. The RAW files are a lot closer, but still...Panasonic is doing something right with its out of camera jpgs these days when it comes to NR.

Finally, some interesting and useful info, first in a month.Of course, testing a5100 with Sony FE55 is misleading, almost nobody will use this combination and almost all buyers will use Sony E 16-55PZ instead, which should have been used for testing.

For me the LX100 is an alternative to buying the 12-35mm F2.8 lens for my GH4. I compared the LX100 to the GH4 sample test images and the LX100 looks like a great match for the GH4 and my 35-100mm F2.8 lens.

The GH4 has slightly better RAW noise characteristics but I like the color reproduction and lens of the LX100 better than the 12-35mm F2.8 m4/3s lens.

I think the LX100 is a home run. The 1 inch sensor cameras don’t look so great next to it now that we have seen some RAW files.

But Panasonic desperately needs higher-res sensor, at least 24mpix to compete with 24-28mpix APS-C and 20mpix 1" - especially for digital zoom which is the only tele option for LX100. 12mpix crop will not sell for many customers, unfortunately.

"But Panasonic desperately needs higher-res sensor, at least 24mpix to compete with 24-28mpix APS-C and 20mpix 1" - especially for digital zoom which is the only tele option for LX100. 12mpix crop will not sell for many customers, unfortunately."

Assuming the current state of tech (Sony's 24 Mpixel representing the best possible pixel size / IQ ratio), 16 Mpixel is the sweet spot for m43.

Of course, it's still not known whether Samsung's somewhat denser, 28 Mpixel APS-C sensor (used in the NX1) indeed delivers better results than Sony's 24. Using that (and exactly the same pixel size), Pana could bump up the native pixel number of their sensors to around 19 Mpixels.

Anything over 20 Mpixel, however, currently would result in the sensor getting significantly noisier, which isn't necessarily what we want. Which can exactly be seen if you compare the noise levels in the LX100 shots to those of the 1" 20 Mpixel sensors.

Not that many people actually print large format pictures anymore. The highest resolution commercial display is only 4K(8 megapixels). 24 megapixels just makes a camera bad in low light. It doesn’t really help you with final resolvable detail.

I will take a 12 megapixel(close to 4/3s) sensor over a 24 megapixel 1 inch sensor any day.

"24 megapixels just makes a camera bad in low light. It doesn’t really help you with final resolvable detail."

I think you're only partly right.

1, assuming you use good-quality lenses with good-to-excellent resolution, there IS some major detail increase if you use a much higher-Mpixel sensor.

2, of course, as I've pointed out above, current tech still doesn't make it possible to produce 24 Mpixel m43 sensors without major tradeoffs in noise (and, most probably, DR). This is why Pana / Oly are still sticking with 16 Mpixel sensors.

"Right the ability to crop (a version of digital zooming) can be helpful."

So it does need it. And yes, with blight lenses like LX100 has, current pixel size on the 12mpix crop in LX100 is much bigger than Aire disk, there is plenty there to increase resolution, especially for digital zoom. It's not like you can change lens on LX100 for tele reach. And add even moderate 2x digital zoom (crop), and we are seeing 3mpix which is not nearly enough - at very very moderate 150mm reach.

"Not that many people actually print large format pictures anymore. The highest resolution commercial display is only 4K(8 megapixels)."

In 16:9 crop.And moderate 2x digital zoom in 16:9 ratio on LX100 is below 3 mpix. If it would be 8, it would be just fantastic. But they need to start with 32mpix+ for that.Again, on m43 it is not such a problem, lenses like Oly 40-150 can be had for $99, Pana 45-200 is not much more especially used. But for LX100, where not even all 16mpix of the sensor are used to begin with, higher res is very much necessary to compete.

"Not that many people actually print large format pictures anymore. The highest resolution commercial display is only 4K(8 megapixels)."

Noise is not ALWAYS a limiting factor. Plenty of shots are done in good light. And yes, current tech EASILY allows to produce not only 24mpix 4/3 sensor but even gigapixel ones. Just scale all those smartphone 1/3.2" 13-mpix sensor and you are in gigapixel territory. Upscale Sony's excellent BSI-CMOS 1" to 4/3" size, and you got 40 mpix - as you should today. Sensor like this in LX100 body would be a game-changer, easily compensating for lack of reach of the lens (even 2x crop still gives you quality of Fuji X30 for example). Of course they would need to update their processors too from the ancient 65nm tech they use, Qualcomm Krait manufactured on 20nm, like in almost all smartphones today, would be what doctor ordered.

Then have a look at some camera specification page, e.g. LX100: LCD 921000, viewfinder: 2,764,000. What do you think is the resolution? Right, LCD 640x480=0.3Mpx, viewfinder 1280x720=0.9Mpx. Go figure.

Anyway, the point is that you should count pixel as pixel in the same way both for the sensor and the screen. A 24Mpx camera does not have 24 megapixels for each color channel, this is the combined number. On the other hand, a 4K display has 8 megapixels for each color, usually called subpixels.

"The point is that you are not using that extra detail if you are using a 4K or less screen or printing at 8x10 or smaller."

Wrong, 3 mpix is not enough for 8x10. And on any screen, you or somebody with whom you shared the picture might want to zoom in into the picture to see more details, or crop just part of the picture.Again, 75mm-equivalent is very often not enough, and then all you have is crop. If it had been 200mm, I would not complain, 12mpix would be OK.

"Actually, the "low" resolution of the LX100 is one of the things I am attracted to."

Suntan, YOU is not the only person in the market. To compete in the market, a manufacturer have to generate volume sales, and A LOT of people will chose 20mpix RX100 over 12mpix LX100.At least they could have provided the option of uncropped sensor readout, I am sure the black-rounded-corner look would become a signature look for the camera.

Very nice performance from LX100, I'll be getting the Leica version, likely same. How did you convert its RAW files? I have checked the latest ACR update and the LX100 is not included. Am I missing something?

After asking this question over the last several days in several different places, I found got a (single) response.

The person suggested RawTherapee. I downloaded the free program, and was indeed able to open an LX100 RW2 file, but the program was so different from ACR and so foreign to me that I did not spend much time with it.

"Colour noise does not show up until it hit ISO 800, thats pretty high for small sensor."

Depends on what you mean by "color noise". The blue channel, as was easy to predict, is noisy even at base ISO. (Show me a non-Fuji APS-C or, even worse, m43 / 1" camera that has noise-free blue skies at base ISO!)

Still less noise than other camera in studio sample like against GX7 and RX100 III for compact camera. Panasonic is not stupid. They don't add too many MP to the smaller sensor design. Too many MP cramming in small sensor won't help at all.

Waou! I didn't expect the best focal of G7x to fall so soundly behind the others. Not only corners are weak, there are other spots in the image where softness is obvious. I'm amazed at the LX100 lens quality, getting with 12MP quite as much details as its counterparts. But I'm a lot more amazed by RX100 m3 lens, strong corners, very few CA even in RAW, bette high ISO than G7x, and at ISO3200 it's even rivaling LX100! Goodness, RX100 price is not going to fall anytime soon.

Maybe, but the gap is so big I don't care. The lens sensor combo is performing above what we expect for that kind of small cameras. Wonder of wonders. I think I'm not waiting to discover Nikon and Olympus answers. RX100 mk3 is so tempting.

Well, pretty much all as expected. All would do fine for the casual shooting scenarios.

Otherwise, I'm still conflicted on the size of the LX100's lens size - and still wait for the LX8 announcement. I hope it would have the Sony 1" sensor, making it near perfect portable camera: the better IQ of Sonys with better handling of Pannys.

Color channel noise depends heavily on light source. Incandescent lighting, for example, has very weak B channel, which will cause WB correction to bring up a lot of noise in that channel. That's why we see two cameras having pretty similar noise when the light source has balanced colors, but one of them suffering of much more noise when channels are unbalanced, in low light situations.

Too many guys believe the BS hype the manufacturers are throwing at you about how good these compacts are, then when they don't perform to what you want it to, out come the guns....compacts are compacts are compacts, small sensors, nothing special, it is what it is....and here is the special, you get shafted by paying premium price....entry level DSLRs with APSC sensors for less $$ are a whole lot better value...oh yeah i forgot, the DSLRs dont fit in your back pocket while you're having coffee down at the cafe.

Although still too expensive for what it offers you have to admit it produces some really decent images by any measure. Plus it fits in your pants pockets, a huge plus anyway you look at it, don't you think?

I am getting the V-Lux (same as LX100), to go along with the dlsr system, which I can keep at a higher level (FF, for example), for more difficult or more requiring shooting situations. A compact this size is very handy, when you don't need all the capability of a dslr. Compare the LX100 size and bulk to even a small dslr or ml, when lenses are included (and kit zooms tend to be very slow, if you want a faster zoom, size, weight and price climb very fast).

Eric I agree the D750 has a better sensor and will do better at high iso. No doubt about that. I make a living with photography and often I just don't want to carry around certain 'big' gear. Even the D750 is quiet small in it's class, it isn't pocket small. The LX100 and Leica version have a 24mm/1,7 and that is a big + for me. Gear are just equipment for a certain propose/job and often overrated as well. In the recent past I'd shoot several frontpages with a Lumix LX3, while colleges stood behind me with a D3s for example.

Well I didnt say D750 could replace your compact camera. while I dont call LX100 sized camera "pocket" small, but I understand its size/weight advantage. The reason I meantioned the D750 was that Its exciting to see studio samples of a new body, before DPR announce it on front page, and beside that, those samples are surprisingly good

As I said, it is ok for noise and corner performance comparisons. And you seem to agree. I further agree it is useful for comparing JPG engines. Although this again is much profile dependent, esp. when it comes to color rendition.

Problem is most people use your studio comparison tool for doing sharpness comparisons which you seem to agree, isn't its primary reason to exist.

Just checked the Sony A5100 at the showroom. With kit lens, corner softness is very noticeable. On the studio scene comparison, Fujifilm X-A1 has more details. Fujifilm X-T1 has less noise. A5100 applied more NR at high ISO. From viewing the LX100 images , I wouldn't go above ISO1600 if using this camera.

Good job DPR guys! But for me it would be interesting to see also e.g. Nikon D750 shots, to be able to compare its IQ with e.g. A5100 IQ, if there is some difference at all.. :-) I guess that in iso 200 nobody could distuingish it!Thanks!

No way the blues in any FF shot (incl. the D750) is equally noisy as in the A5100's shot.

While Sony's 24 Mpixel sensor is great, it still can't produce noiseless blues at the base ISO - unlike FF sensors (or, for that matter, X-Trans Fuji APS-C ones). Just look at the blue squares of the color checker in these studio shots...

All too complicated DPR.. set up a wooden post 2mtrs away..take iso shots, then aperture shots.. move post to 5mtrs & repeat.. & so on.. finally some close up/macro shots. Do the same with head/portrait shots. In real life this is what photographers are doing & would surely give us a clearer idea of the camera. I know you put in a big effort @DPR & have to take a lot of flack.. but are you being so technical in these tests that the needs of the photographer on the ground is being missed?.. the pure joy of holding & shooting a beautifully crafted instrument... that can capture that majical image.. ahh, now this is something to cherish.. surely.

Your test - well, it just tests that one thing. Our test - it tests a different thing. Perhaps you can just appreciate that - for now - our studio scene test is more a test of the sensor/image quality. That is: Raw ISO/noise performance, and default color rendition and detail retention (particularly for JPEG).

Also, I'm not sure why you'd test a wooden post at different distances at different ISOs. It's important to take a step back and ask yourself 'what is it exactly that I want this test to, er, test?' :)

I would not judge lens quality based on those test shots. Those are zoom lenses, the performance varies at different focal lengths and apertures. Some cameras might perform better on wide end than others, while at the tele end, the situation might be reversed.

3. it's pretty much the same as that of the 24 Mpixel sensor of the A6000 / A5100 (before downsampling the latter, obviously) and only gets visibly worse over ISO 6400.

4. the A5100 has exactly the same-tech sensor as the A6000, meaning equally good noise. (Unlike with the, noise-wise, cr@ppy 20 Mpixel sensor in the A5000, which produced noisier images even at 20 Mpixel than the A6000 sensor at a higher and, consequently, more demanding 24 Mpixels.) This is certainly good news for people that don't need an EVF.

There must be some crazy sample variation. On the bottom left cards, the G7 X is so soft it looks like motion blur. This isn't the case from any of the other comparisons i've seen though, where I need to go back n forth to look for differences.

No, some corners are better on the G7 X, some are better on the RX100 III. Some other parts of the image are better on one, some others on the other.

And that's the point - you're always going to find these sorts of differences, especially when dealing with compacts with sensors that place high demands on the lens.

Even IR's wider angle shots of the G7 X show significant corner softness. Their RX100 III shots at the wide end show softer top corners than bottom corners, that persist even down to f/5.6.

This is not a dig at IR - this is an acceptance of the reality of these devices. We already do a set of tests to check for the best focal length & aperture combination. It'd be lovely to test 10 different copies of a camera or lens to pick the best one, and do a focal length & aperture run on each of those, but (1) we're not set up to get that many copies from a manufacturer, and (2) we don't have the bandwidth to do that, especially when lens sharpness is not the objective here.

@Zeisschen - you're kind of missing my point... who even said it's a 'bad copy'?

Even with the RX100 III, half the copies of that camera I tested had similar performance, though I did, after testing 4 copies, find one with slightly better performance.

But if we post that, we cherry picked. If we keep the one that slightly performed, we 'picked a bad copy' and, as the authority in the space, are misrepresenting the camera.

You just can't win, can you?

I'm in half a mind to post the full focal length & aperture study in a widget, so you can see for yourself the sort of variations in performance across the field you can expect from these very demanding sensors (2.4 µm pixel pitch)... would that ease some of your minds?

... and all that about the RX100 III doesn't even get at the fact that all those 70mm equivalent results were entirely irrelevant to me.

B/c for me, the best thing about the RX100 III was that it was significantly sharper off-center on the wide end at f/1.8 than any of its predecessors. With the I and II I had to stop down to f/2.8 or f/4 at 28mm equiv. to get faces of nearby subjects on the top half of the frame (well north of center) perfectly sharp. With the RX100 III, they're sharp at f/1.8 - f/2.

And our studio scene wouldn't show that. B/c it's one focal length, optimized for field uniformity.

It's really important to understand what tests do, and don't, show. As our Editor has already said - our studio scene is largely aimed at showing the potential of the sensor. Its noise performance, and what its JPEG engine does with color and detail retention at different ISOs.

All the other requests are asking for something, while valuable, is very difficult to show in this test.

Into the End, i should have at least test 10 (!) LX100, to pick up the best copy of them, after carefully testing each one at aperture F1.7 up to F8...nobody can afford that, the same goes for the other ones...it's simply called: Sample variance.But perhaps someone can buy 3 copies from amazon, and keep the best one...but i wouldn't encourage people to do that.

Exactly. To be fair, some cameras/lenses have more/less sample variation than others. I was actually pretty pleased with the performance of the four RX100 III copies I tested. All performed pretty well at/near wide open, although field uniformity was not the best at these wide apertures (especially at the wide end, after all the distortion correction). Yet, they were perfectly acceptable to me - and I have fairly high standards, but with an understanding of the limitations of the system. We happened to choose f/5.6 for the RX100 III for the most uniformity. Generally b/c it's the first thing people here complain about when there's a lack of it.

Personally, though, I try not to use my RX100 III at f/5.6, b/c it's already diffraction limited there. If I have enough data collected for a focal length/aperture study widget between the G7 X and RX100 III, that'll be an interesting comparison.

I'm pretty sure IR and other sites will do what you have missed as they post more test pics with different FL/F values as well as multiple test scenes as opposed to just one here. No in-length explanation or statement of intentions will supersede test pictures so if viewers cannot find what they came for here they will go elsewhere, it's that simple. I'm just surprised by myopic point of view you presented here.

thanks for that info, Rishi. Well, the LX100 shouldn't be diffraction limited at F/5.6, because the sensor doesn't have 20 MP, and anyway because of the multi-aspect mode, doesn't use it's full 16 MP resolution anyway.

According to the Cambridge in Color Diffraction Calculator (nice online tool, as so is that site for ages) the 20 MP onto the 1" Sony Sensor is only diffraction limited when i choose there the "Set circle of confusion* based on pixels" check mark.

@proxy: and we will do other things IR and other sites don't do. What's your point? That's the beauty of variety, of a free market (not that you're paying). Did we break some sacred vow we'd made with you?

My bad for ever responding to you with my 'in-length explanations' that clearly explain what we do and don't test, the limitations of our system and arrangements, and the realities and complexities of what you're asking.

That's not a myopic point of view - that's understanding the realities, appreciating the complexity, and even laying out what'd have to be done to get at the problems you (and I as well) want solved.

I even said that, having tested many more cameras than you have I'm sure, none of what I see here is unexpected or even alarming when you consider we're showing one representative focal length that has generally good field uniformity.

That said, please do go elsewhere. By all means. Your attitude displayed here is not exactly one that'll be missed.

Now, to quote the site: "As a result of the sensor's anti-aliasing filter (and the Rayleigh criterion above), an airy disk can have a diameter of about 2-3 pixels before diffraction limits resolution (assuming an otherwise perfect lens). However, diffraction will likely have a visual impact prior to reaching this diameter.

As two examples, the Canon EOS 20D begins to show diffraction at around f/11, whereas the Canon PowerShot G6 begins to show its effects at only about f/5.6."

So it's not surprising that I start seeing a drop in center sharpness by about f/5.6 on my RX100 III - at the pixel level. That's what I meant when I said you're diffraction limited 'by' f/5.6. YMMV, depending on your visual acuity.

My point is that if the field uniformity is acceptable, you'll want to stick with f/5.6 or wider for optimal sharpness. By f/8, there's a noticeable drop in pixel-level sharpness compared to f/5.6 with the RX100 III.

@Rishi, worst thing is when instead of identifying the issue and saying "we'll verify that" or "we'll look into this" you come up with lengthy explanations to justify your position and then later when confronted about specifics you blame the messenger for pointing it out to you and DPR.My impression is that you'd rather quickly come up with some line of defense on the forum and put out the fire right away then diligently verifying stuff on your end to make sure you're not misinforming the public. If, say, out of 3 cameras all 3 displayed this type of lens distortion it's a flag for users about some serious inconsistency in design or manuf. process. That is why public checks reviews to avoid disappointments. This is also your journalistic duty to spell it out clearly. It seems that you'd rather engage in exchange here instead of doing your DD. Quite strange and disappointing.

Funny - b/c at some point I mentioned that if we could get another copy of the G7 X, we'll test for copy variation. I also mentioned I'll try and publish our focal length and aperture study.

I also pointed out that these results aren't anything out of the ordinary from what'd expect, having tested many of these cameras. It's your choice to ignore that statement and still push your 'feeling' that this is obviously a bad camera. The same thing happened when we published the RX100 III results months back.

Coincidence?

You're missing the entire point: I'm saying these tests didn't raise a flag, b/c we've seen similar results across similar cameras.

It seems you want something else - you want a test of copy variation. I already said that's totally fair, & something I want as well, but that we can't provide now.

The G7x is ridiculously bad on the left (picture of man's beard stubble) and below (green fur and foliage is mush) and sponge on lower right (more blur.) Horrible. Canon should be embarrassed to have provided this as a sample unless dpreview picked one up themselves, like Consumer Reports. Makes you wonder how much of a lottery it would be to get a decent one.

... and the RX100 III appears similarly as soft at the upper right corner (Raw). It's not completely unprecedented performance when your sensor has such high demands on the resolving power of the lens.

We got our sample from Canon.

If we can get more samples and have the bandwidth, we'll investigate.

FWIW, for years I'd typically test multiple samples of compacts before purchasing one for myself - b/c this is what I'd expect from them.

Rishi, While the RX100 might be softer on the upper right than the Canon it is no where near as bad as the Canon is in the lower left...or lower right for that matter. If I bought this Canon sample it would go right back.

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